Reflecting her preservation work across three African countries, the exhibition Modern West Africa: Recorded was recently unveiled by Associate Professor Aziza Chaouni and colleagues at the 2023 Venice Biennale of Architecture.

Through her architectural practice—Aziza Chaouni Projects (ACP)—Chaouni has been leading, with support from the Getty Foundation and the World Monuments Fund, the conservation and adaptive reuse of three publicly owned modernist buildings from West Africa’s post-independence era: The Sidi Harazem Thermal Bath Station (Morocco, 1960–1965), La Maison du Peuple (Burkina Faso, 1965) and the Centre International du Commerce Extérieur du Sénégal (Senegal, 1974). 

Modern West Africa: Recorded explores these sites through oral histories and stakeholder testimonials in a short film and corresponding exhibition that invites viewers to understand the past and present of these spaces, in order to speculate on their futures.

“The complexity of each site necessitated a methodology based on listening and exchange, and a commitment to collaborative design with owners, operators and communities,” says Chaouni. “International conservation movements have decentered African modernism, with no works appearing on the UNESCO World Heritage List, leaving them unprotected and underfunded. Recognizing these histories is key at a moment when Africa faces change.”

This year’s biennale, curated by Lesley Lokko, focuses on the theme The Laboratory of the Future. “For the first time ever,” Lokko says in an exhibition statement, “the spotlight has fallen on Africa and the African Diaspora, that fluid and enmeshed culture of people of African descent that now straddles the globe.”

Led by Chaouni and Dana Salama, an associate at ACP, Modern West Africa: Recorded is included in Guests from the Future, a special project within the Biennale showcasing work that “engages directly with the twin themes of this exhibition, decolonization and decarbonization, providing a snapshot, a glimpse of future practices and ways of seeing and being in the world.”

The 2023 Venice Biennale of Architecture is open from May 20 to November 26. Learn more about the sites and watch the short film at modernwestafrica.org.

Banner images: 1-2: Sidi Harazem Thermal Bath Station (Morocco, 1960–1965), doublespace photography; 3-4: Modern West Africa: Recorded exhibition at the Venice Biennale courtesy Aziza Chaouni.

The colonial fishing villages and maritime infrastructure along the shoreline of early modern Newfoundland are the foci of an article by Assistant Professor Jason Nguyen in the international quarterly Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes.

Nguyen’s essay, titled “Encountering the Shoreline: Ecology and Infrastructure on the Early Modern Newfoundland Coast,” is part of a special issue, “Port Cities and Landscapes of the Sea,” edited by Kathleen John-Adler and Stephen H. Whiteman.

The issue also includes articles by Christy Anderson from the University of Toronto, Edward Eigen of Harvard University and Jeremy Foster of Cornell University. 

An historian of architecture, landscape and urban planning in the early modern world, Nguyen (pictured below) contends in his essay that, during the 17th and 18th centuries, the establishment of settlements and construction of seagoing vessels, preservation stations and other logistical sites at and across the littoral line supported the commercialization of the global cod market while fundamentally altering the coastal ecologies of North Atlantic waters. 

The Grand Banks of Newfoundland—the underwater plateaus that provided shallow feeding conditions for underwater life—made the sea shelf one of the richest fishing regions in the world. 

On a global scale, the commercial extraction and preservation of cod supported the expanding diet and political economy of the early modern imperial state. 

On a local scale, the construction of buildings along the shoreline intruded on the littoral ecosystem and impelled the relocation of the native Beothuk inhabitants to the island’s interior, thereby highlighting the genocidal ramifications of European coastal development. 

How, Nguyen’s article asks, might one conceptualize the logistical architecture of the Newfoundland fisheries as both a spatial node within a global network of trade as well as a material intrusion into the ecology of the North Atlantic coastline?

To read the article, click here. Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes is an open-access journal.

Banner image: Matthäus Merian’s “Richard Whitbourne and the Mermaid of St. John’s Harbour,” in Theodor de Bry’s Dreyzehender Theil Americae, 1628. The etching and engraving is in the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.

Miles Gertler (Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream) is among this year’s winners of the Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers, handed out annually by The Architectural League of New York.

The League Prize, open to North American-based architects and designers who are 10 years or less out of a bachelor’s or master’s degree program, is one of the continent’s most prestigious awards for young practitioners.

Established in 1981 as the Young Architects’ Forum, the prize is awarded on the basis of a portfolio competition and decided by a hand-picked jury.  

The 2023 competition theme, Uncomfortable, called on entrants to examine their discomforts.  “From climate change to labor practices,” the mandate noted, “the sources of our discomfort demand both critical reflection and collective imagination. Are you restless within the discipline’s status quo? How do you respond to discomfort? Whose comfort matters?”

Under the requirements of the prize, winners must both deliver a lecture and create an installation representative of their work. This year’s lecture series will be held online on Thursday evenings starting June 15 (the night that Gertler is slated to speak) on Zoom. Each lecture will feature presentations from two of the winners followed by a moderated discussion and q&a session.

The installations, meanwhile, will be presented either in the respective home bases of each winner or in entirely digital formats, all of which will be presented in an online exhibition on archleague.org.

In addition to Gertler (pictured below), this year’s League Prize recipients include Katie MacDonald and Kyle Schumann of After Architecture in Virginia, Joseph Altshuler and Zack Morrison of Could Be Design in Illinois, Daisy Ames of Studio Ames in New York City, Sean Canty of Studio Sean Canty in Boston, and Sarah Aziz and Lindsey Krug of Albuquerque, Chicago and Milwaukee.

Co-directed with Igor Bragado, Gertler’s design studio, Common Accounts, is based in Toronto and Madrid. The practice is an experimental one predicated on the idea that most design intelligence active in the world operates below the radar of the design disciplines. Their work is therefore concerned with expanding architecture’s scope to learn from the ingenuity embedded in the immediate present.

“Our practice is unique in the sense that inquiry itself becomes intervention,” Gertler and Bragado say. “The basis of our work, then, is to question, reorganize and intensify established realities which require re-thinking for the improvement of daily life.”

In 2021, the Common Accounts installation Parade of All the Feels was presented at Greater Toronto Art 2021, the Museum of Contemporary Art’s inaugural triennial exhibition.

Their work has also been showcased at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the Milan Triennale and the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism.

Banner and homepage image: The Common Accounts installation Closer Each Day: The Architecture of Everyday Death (2022) is “a speculative work of architectural inquiry” initiated at Princeton University and further developed through a drawing commissioned by the Canadian Centre for Architecture. Photo by the Canadian Centre for Architecture

Portrait of Miles Gertler by Kirk Lisaj

A team of researchers led by Professor Sean Thomas of Forestry has been awarded a $1.3-million grant by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

The grant, provided through NSERC’s Alliance Mission program, is one of the largest single research grants ever provided for an individual project at the Daniels Faculty.

The funding is intended to support the creation of “novel strategies” for mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from urban forestry waste.

“Everyone has seen urban forestry waste, but it kind of goes unnoticed,” says Professor Thomas, who is also the Faculty’s Associate Dean, Research. “Think of the tree-pruning guys with the aerial lift and the noisy chipper. Where does all that stuff go? It turns out that all the chipped bits of branches and leaves are first taken to large storage yards, and then mostly end up in compost facilities. A large part, unfortunately, also goes to landfill. From forestry studies, we know that this kind of material can be a large source of greenhouse gas emissions—not just carbon dioxide, but also methane, which now represents about 30 percent of climate forcing. The GHG emissions specific to urban forestry waste have not previously been quantified.”

To measure and potentially mitigate those emissions, Thomas has been joined by a cadre of co-researchers. Fellow “principal investigators” include Sandy M. Smith and Rasoul Yousefpour of Forestry, Alison D. Munson and Janani Sivarajah from Université Laval, Carly Ziter of Concordia University and Scott Chang of the University of Alberta.

Other collaborators include Liat Margolis of the Daniels Faculty, Deborah Wunch from U of T’s Department of Physics and Nathan Basiliko of Lakehead University.

The endeavour also extends beyond academia. Among the project’s municipal partners are City of Toronto Forestry, Quebec City Forestry and City of Edmonton Parks and Roads Services. Partners from the private sector include Titan Smart Carbon Technologies, Haliburton Forest and Wild Life Reserve Ltd., Airex Énergie, Innovative Reduction Strategies and Seed the North.

In addition to better quantifying direct GHG emissions from urban soils and vegetation in Canada, including the elucidation of urban GHG-emission “hotspots” connected with urban forestry waste, the far-flung team aims to explore novel soil amendment and vegetation planting strategies to reduce emissions, with a focus on the use of modified forms of pyrolyzed organic matter (biochar) as an urban soil amendment to enhance urban soil C sequestration, reduce direct GHG emissions, and increase urban vegetation growth and resilience to stresses. 

“Integration, modeling and life-cycle analysis components of the project,” the grant proposal states, “will address the potential for novel strategies to generate a ‘virtuous cycle’ in which waste material from urban vegetation is recycled via pyrolysis for use in urban green infrastructure, with knock-on benefits that include reduced urban energy demand.”

Examples of “urban green infrastructure,” Professor Thomas says, run the gamut from green roofs to bioswales to street trees—any kind of vegetation or soils “valued for providing ecosystem services, like reducing urban flooding and mitigating the urban heat-island effect.”

He adds: “Urban forestry waste isn’t exactly glamorous, but urgent action is needed on climate change, which is ultimately driven by various kinds of waste. This project addresses a small part of the big picture of GHG emissions, but it is a part we can really do something about in the short term. The most gratifying part is to work as part of a team to actually have an impact.”

On that note, Professor Thomas says, “it’s great to get this grant, but I need help. We have funding in hand for students (undergrads, Masters, PhDs) to make the measurements, implement experiments, do inventories, run the economic numbers, take action. It’s important.”

Any students who are interested in participating, he notes, should connect with him via e-mail at sc.thomas@utoronto.ca. 

“If you’re grabbed by this, please contact me. You can be part of this unglamorous but important effort.”

Tree waste image: A significant amount of urban tree-pruning waste, shown above next to a chipper, ends up in landfills. It is also a source of GHG emissions.

Black City Builders in Canada, Daniels Faculty sessional lecturer Kaari Kitawi’s new video series profiling some of the country’s leading Black design professionals, has launched.

The four-part series—for which Kitawi (pictured below) received a grant from the Landscape Architecture Canada Foundation (LACF) last year to produce—will be shown on her existing YouTube channel, called Careers Unboxed with Kaari.

That channel features interviews with Black professionals from around the world and a variety of fields about their respective career journeys. Black City Builders in Canada, by contrast, hones in on the experiences and perspectives of architecture and design professionals working in this country.

“It is important for us to tell our stories in order to change the narrative,” Kitawi said when she received the LACF grant, referring to the need for BIPOC students to see themselves reflected among those already making their mark in disciplines such as architecture, landscape architecture, urban design and planning.

Both her YouTube channel and the new series expand on the in-person outreach that she has also conducted, such as giving career talks to BIPOC high-schoolers in her Toronto neighbourhood and elsewhere.

The first, 50-minute instalment of Black City Builders in Canada, featuring Nigerian-Canadian landscape architect Emeka Nnadi, is currently available for viewing, as is a trailer offering sneak peeks of future subjects.

Among those who’ll be profiled in upcoming segments are architect and Daniels Faculty assistant professor Anne-Marie Armstrong, urban designer Eldon Theodore and landscape architect Kellie Spence.

To view the trailer for Black City Builders in Canada, click here. To watch the first episode of the series, click here.

A paper co-authored and -supervised by Rasoul Yousefpour, assistant professor of forestry economics and policy at the Daniels Faculty, has just been published in the open-access online journal Nature Communications.

Called High economic costs of reduced carbon sinks and declining biome stability in Central American forests, the article is the result of a multi-year study into ecosystem services (ES) in the forests of the title region.

ES refer to the many social and climate benefits provided by tropical forests, such as carbon sinks for climate regulation and crucial habitats for unique biodiversity.

The study—which Yousefpour conducted with three colleagues at the University of Freiburg in Germany, from which he obtained his PhD in 2009—looks at the implications of climate change “for the economic value of these services,” an area that the co-authors say has “rarely [been] explored before.”

Among their findings: “projected ES declines in 24 to 62 percent of the study region with associated economic costs of $51 billion to 314 billion a year until 2100.”

These declines, they add, will particularly affect montane and dry forests and have strong economic implications for Central America’s lower-middle-income countries, such as El Salvador and Honduras.

“In addition, economic losses were mostly higher for habitat services than for climate regulation. This highlights the need to expand the focus from mere maximization of carbon dioxide sequestration and avoid false incentives from carbon markets.”

The maps above show what the authors call economic hotspots, forested areas with the highest projected monetary losses as a result of climate stress.

In his study of adaptive forest management and decision-making, which is Yousefpour’s specialty, he uses ecological modelling approaches to forecast the ways in which forests will grow and change over time, then performs analysis on those models to determine the effects of different human interventions.

The paper in Nature Communications is the latest of several he has written on the subject of forest management. His co-authors for this one are Lukas Baumbach, Thomas Hickler and Marc Hanewinkel.

Banner image of Costa Rican montane forest by wirestock on Freepik

Architect and alumnus Irving Grossman, well-known for his socially conscious design work, is the namesake of a new Fund aimed at inspiring innovation in an area challenging Toronto and other major cities around the world right now: housing affordability. 

The Irving Grossman Fund in Affordable Housing, named for the award-winning Toronto modernist who acquired his Bachelor of Architecture degree from U of T in 1950, will recognize and support Daniels Faculty students, professors and community partners tackling the urgent issue of how to make housing more accessible to all. 

Grossman, who also taught at U of T’s School of Architecture for many years, designed a wide range of buildings throughout his 45-year career, from single-family homes to synagogues to the Administration Building at Expo 67, but he was especially noted for his social and mixed-income projects, including such milestone Toronto housing developments as Flemingdon Park, Edgeley Village and the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood. 

“My working-class background, together with my interest in art, led to architecture being a natural creative outlet for me, especially social housing,” he once said. 

Irving and Helena Grossman’s son, Jonas Grossman, established the Irving Grossman Fund in Affordable Housing to honour his father’s legacy and to inspire a new generation of architects and urbanists to make a contribution in the field, a prominent area of teaching and research at the Faculty. 

Over the past several years, more and more students across disciplines have been exploring affordability issues, which are especially resonant in Toronto, a city increasingly marked by income and housing disparities. New faculty with expertise in the subject are being appointed, while exhibitions such as the recent Housing Multitudes show highlight ongoing Faculty research on the topic. 

“The Irving Grossman Fund in Affordable Housing will further enable our Faculty to advance and disseminate novel knowledge on housing with an emphasis on social equity, urban affordability and design innovation,” says Dean Juan Du. “It’s a fitting tribute to Irving Grossman, who made significant contributions in these areas, especially through his projects here in Toronto. We appreciate the Grossman family’s continued contributions to the city and the Faculty.” 

The new Fund, which takes effect in 2023-2024, is the second initiative to bear Irving Grossman’s name at the Faculty.  

In 2002, Helena Grossman led family and friends in the establishment of the Irving Grossman Prize, which is awarded annually to two Master of Architecture students demonstrating excellence and innovation in their final design theses on the subjects of multiple-unit housing or the adaptive reuse of buildings for housing purposes. 

To date, more than three dozen students with demonstrated professional promise have been awarded the Irving Grossman Prize. 

For their sustained contributions to the University of Toronto, both Irving and Helena Grossman received Arbor Awards, the highest honour bestowed on volunteers by U of T.   

In 2018, Helena Grossman (here flanked by U of T President Meric Gertler and U of T Chancellor Rose M. Patten) received an Arbor Award for her significant volunteer contributions to the Daniels Faculty. 

As a student, Irving Grossman was already garnering accolades, winning the Ontario Association of Architects Scholarship, the Architectural Guild Medal and the prestigious Pilkington Glass Fellowship. Among his professional awards were the Massey Medal for Architecture and a Canadian Centennial Medal. He was also a fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada. 

In 1995, the year of Grossman’s death, he and fellow architect Jerome Markson, a good friend, were honoured by the Toronto Society of Architects with a fellowship award in recognition of their “exceptional contribution to the profession of architecture and the cultural life of Toronto.” 

More than a decade later, Irving Grossman was awarded his very last prize: a posthumous Landmark Award from the OAA for his role in the design of the still-vibrant St. Lawrence Neighbourhood, regarded by many as a paragon of mixed-income development and, as The Globe and Mail described it in 2013, “a template for urban housing.” 

Banner image: Architect Irving Grossman surveys the burgeoning St. Lawrence Neighbourhood in 1979. Graham Bezant photo courtesy Toronto Star Photograph Archives

9 a.m., Tuesday, April 11 to 6 p.m., Friday, April 28
Daniels Faculty Building,
1 Spadina Crescent, Toronto, Ontario

Throughout April, students in architecture, landscape architecture, urban design and forestry will present final projects to their instructors. Students of the Daniels Faculty will also present to guest critics from both academia and the professional community in attendance.

Follow the Daniels Faculty @UofTDaniels on Twitter and Instagram, and join the conversation using the hashtag #DanielsReviews.

Tuesday, April 11 | Undergraduate

Design Studio I
JAV101H1
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: Jay Pooley (Coordinator), Anamarija Korolj, Batoul Faour, Phat Le, Jeffrey Garcia, Katy Chey, Kara Verbeek, Kearon Roy Taylor, Samantha Eby, Jennifer Kudlats, Brian Boigon, Monifa Charles-Dedier, Mariano Martellacci, Jamie Lipson, Mohammed Soroor

Rooms: 215, 230, 240, 315, 330, Main Hall

Wednesday, April 12 | Undergraduate

Design Studio II
ARC201H1
9 a.m.–1 p.m. ET

Instructors: Fiona Lim Tung (Coordinator), Dan Briker, Quan Thai, Carol Moukheiber, Shane Williamson, Nova Tayona, David Verbeek, Anne Ma, Tomg Ngo, Gonzalo Munoz Vera, Francesco Martire

Rooms: 209, 215, 230, 240, 315, 340, Main Hall

Landscape Architecture Studio IV
ARC364Y1
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Pete North

Room: 330

Thursday, April 13 | Undergraduate

Architecture Studio IV
ARC362Y1
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: Mauricio Quiros Pacheco (Coordinator), Chloe Town, Jon Cummings

Rooms: 215, 230, 240, 330

Technology Studio IV
ARC381Y1
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: Andrew Bako (Coordinator), Timothy Boll

Room: Main Hall

Friday, April 14 | Graduate & Undergraduate

Design Studio 2
LAN1012Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: Elise Shelley (Coordinator), Terence Radford, Agata Mrozowski

Room: 330

Urban Design Studio Options
URD1012Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Simon Rabyniuk

Room: 230

Design + Engineering I
ARC112H1
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: Jay Pooley (Coordinator), Jennifer Davis, Clinton Langevin

Rooms: 200

Drawing and Representation I
ARC200H1
9 a.m.–1 p.m. ET

Instructors: Roberto Damiani (Coordinator), Jon Cummings, Francesco Valente-Gorjup, Otto Ojo, Scott Norsworthy

Rooms: 215, 240, 315, 340

Monday, April 17 | Graduate

Design Studio 2
ARC1012Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: Adrian Phiffer (Coordinator), James Bird, Chloe Town, Anne-Marie Armstrong, Mauricio Quiros Pacheco, Behnaz Assadi, Julia DiCastri

Room: Main Hall

Tuesday, April 18 | Graduate

Design Studio 4
ARC2014Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: Samuel Dufaux (Coordinator), Brigitte Shim, Steven Fong, Chris Cornecelli, James Macgillivray, Carol Moukheiber, Carol Phillips, Francesco Martire

Rooms: 230, 330, Main Hall

Wednesday, April 19 | Graduate

Design Studio 4
ARC2014Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: Samuel Dufaux (Coordinator), Brigitte Shim, Steven Fong, Chris Cornecelli, James Macgillivray, Carol Moukheiber, Carol Phillips, Francesco Martire

Rooms: 230, 215, Main Hall

Design Studio 4
LAN2014Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: Alissa North, Todd Douglas

Room: 330

Thursday, April 20 | Graduate & Undergraduate

Design Studio Thesis
LAN3017Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: Fadi Masoud (Coordinator), Elise Shelley, Behnaz Assadi, Pete North, Alissa North, Jane Wolff, Francesco Martire, Matthew Perotto, Megan Esopenko

Rooms: 209, 230, 242, 330

Senior Seminar in Design (Thesis)
ARC462Y1
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Laura Miller

Room: Main Hall A

Senior Seminar in Technology (Thesis)
ARC487Y1
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Nicholas Hoban

Rooms: Main Hall B & C

Friday, April 21 | Graduate & Undergraduate

Design Studio Thesis
LAN3017Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: Fadi Masoud (Coordinator), Elise Shelley, Behnaz Assadi, Pete North, Alissa North, Jane Wolff, Francesco Martire, Matthew Perotto, Megan Esopenko

Rooms: 209, 230, 242, 330

Urban Design Studio Thesis
URD2015Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: Michael Piper, Otto Ojo

Rooms: 315, 340

Senior Seminar in Design (Thesis)
ARC462Y1
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Laura Miller

Room: Main Hall A

Senior Seminar in Technology (Thesis)
ARC487Y1
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Nicholas Hoban

Rooms: Main Hall B & C

Monday, April 24 | Graduate

Architectural Design Studio: Research 2
ARC3021Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: Brian Boigon, Lukas Pauer, Laura Miller, Zachary Mollica, Petros Babasikas

Rooms: 215, 230, 240, 330, Main Hall

Tuesday, April 25 | Graduate

Architectural Design Studio: Research 2
ARC3021Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: Jeannie Kim, Laura Miller, Petros Babasikas, Zachary Mollica, John Shnier

Rooms: 209, 215, 230, 240, 242, 330, Main Hall, 1st Floor Hallway

Wednesday, April 26 | Graduate

Architectural Design Studio: Research 2
ARC3021Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructors: Jeannie Kim, Shane Williamson, Marc McQuade, Marina Tabassum, John Shnier

Rooms: 209, 215, 230, 240, 242, 330, Main Hall, 1st Floor Hallway

Thursday, April 27 | Graduate & Undergraduate

Thesis 2
ALA4022Y
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Mason White (Coordinator)

Rooms: 215, 240

Senior Seminar in History and Theory (Thesis)
ARC457Y1
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Simon Rabyniuk

Room: Main Hall

Friday, April 28 | Undergraduate

Senior Seminar in History and Theory (Thesis)
ARC457Y1
9 a.m.–6 p.m. ET

Instructor: Simon Rabyniuk

Room: Main Hall

This year’s Building Black Success through Design (BBSD) Showcase—a presentation of the work of Black high-school-aged design mentees—will be held in the Main Hall of the Daniels Building on Saturday, April 15.

Now in its second year, BBSD is a 12-week mentorship program offered through the Daniels Faculty for Black high-school students who are interested in architecture and design. The goal of the program is to inspire Black students to pursue excellence and innovation within design industries and academia, thereby enhancing diversity within the fields and building Black success through design.

The BBSD Showcase, held last year at Collision Gallery in Toronto’s Commerce Court (pictured below and on the homepage), exhibits the final projects of participating students. The 2023 Showcase on April 15 will take place from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at 1 Spadina Crescent.

The event is free and open to all. Attendees are invited to register for tickets here.

This year, 18 students from high schools across the Greater Toronto Area and as far away as Sudbury will be completing the program, the theme of which is Design for Belonging. Grades 9 to 12 were represented; 10 of the students undertook the program in person, while eight participated online.

To guide the students, eight mentors were hired—four for the online cohort and four for the in-person group. All of the mentors were either Black current students or Black alumni.

Serving as Faculty advisors were Assistant Professor Bomani Khemet, Assistant Professor Petros Babasikas and Dr. Jewel Amoah, Assistant Dean, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. The program was administered by a coordinating team of six, including program supervisors Clara James and Rayah Flash, program facilitators Renée Powell-Hines and Mariam Abdelrahman, outreach and recruitment coordinator Julien Todd, and graphic designer Angelica Blake.

Although the two students cohorts each received initial instruction in the fundamentals of the design process, from tools to techniques, the focus of their designs ultimately diverged. The in-person group was tasked with making Toronto’s David Pecault Square, characterized by its hardscaping and location in the city core, more welcoming and inclusive, while the online cohort looked at achieving similar results for two lakeside parks near Ontario Place.

By many accounts, the exercises and outcomes were well received.

“My favourite part of the program,” one mentee wrote in a recent survey, “is learning how to rethink spaces to account for the people near them.”

“I like that this is a space to grow and develop your talents while feeling supported and encouraged,” said another.

In addition to the Showcase on the 15th, the drawings, models and other design work produced by the mentees may also be used by those who want to pursue further education “in an admissions portfolio to various post-secondary programs,” a key goal of the program.

For a sneak peek at the students’ process and work so far, link to the BBSD feed on Instagram by clicking here.

The Daniels Faculty is in the process of creating a new Academic Plan (2024-2029) to articulate our vision and define our priorities for the coming years. An integral part of this process is the consultation phase, a period for our community to share ideas and priorities regarding the future of our school. To that end, the Faculty is canvassing faculty, students, staff and alumni for their input on this important project over the coming weeks. 

There will be a number of ways for all to participate.

*For students, a dedicated Townhall will be held from noon to 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 30 in the Main Hall of the Daniels Building. To register to attend, click here. 

*For faculty and staff, a Townhall Workshop will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Friday, March 31 in the Main Hall of the Daniels Building (a calendar invite will be issued). Those who are unable to make this in-person event may attend an Online Workshop on Tuesday, April 4 (a calendar invite will be issued).

Furthermore, all members of the Daniels Faculty community will be able to participate through: 

*A Pop-up Studio, for drop-in conversations and feedback throughout the day. It will be operating daily, from Monday, March 27 to Thursday, April 6, in the Graduate Student Lounge (DA165) off the Student Commons at 1 Spadina Crescent.

*A Digital Survey, available from Wednesday, March 29 to Monday, April 10; fill it out by clicking here. 

The ideas and input of the Daniels Faculty community are vital as we map out the future of our school, and everyone is encouraged to contribute to this important vision plan. Thank you in advance for your feedback!